This also occurs in the case of created beings: in many passages, words denoting their attributes are used to mean something other than those attributes.

I shall give two useful examples of this. The first concerns the attribute of the Face. Affirming this attribute was the position of the people of hadith and the attribute-affirming theologians among the Kullābiyyah, Ash'ariyyah and Karrāmiyyah. Denying it was the position of the Jahmiyyah, including the Mu'tazilah and others, as well as some attribute-affirmers among the Ash'ariyyah and others. Consequently, whenever some people from either side read a verse mentioning the face, they treated it as one of the disputed passages. Those who affirm the attribute regard the verse as referring to an attribute that must not be interpreted away, while those who deny it consider that, if evidence establishes that this verse does not refer to an attribute, the same applies to other verses.

An example is His saying, Most High:

“To Allah belong the east and the west; wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah.”

Groups among both those who affirm attributes and those who deny them included this among the verses concerning the divine attributes. Indeed, “the former,” such as Ibn Khuzaymah, counted it among the passages establishing this attribute, while “those who deny it” used its interpretation as something other than an attribute as an argument for their position in the disputed passages.

Thus, when we gathered at the session that had been convened, I had already said: “I have given everyone who disagrees with me three years. If anyone brings even a single statement from the early generations contradicting anything I have mentioned, he will have established his case, and I will do such-and-such.” My opponents began searching through books and found what al-Bayhaqī mentioned in his book Al-Asmā’ wa-l-Sifāt (The Names and Attributes) concerning His saying, Most High:

“To Allah belong the east and the west; wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah.”

He reported from Mujāhid and al-Shāfi'ī that what is meant is Allah’s direction of prayer. At the second session, one of their leading figures said: “I have brought a report from the early generations supporting figurative interpretation.” I sensed what he had prepared, so I said: “Perhaps you have cited what is reported